THE ANTARCTIC SEAL FISHERIES. 421 



and FaircliiUVs Beach, both near the easterly end. At the former beach no lauding can be made, 

 but blabber must be rafted off. Fairchild's Beach has a good lauding place. A long sandy point, 

 sometimes called Southwest Beach, forms the "toe" of the islaud. In rough weather the breakers 

 ' extend 6 miles off from this point. Next to Southwest Beach, as we pass along the " sole " of the 

 island, we come to Little Beach, where elephants are killed and the blubber either rafted off in 

 boats or carried across the intervening ice to Southwest Beach. 



The " heel " of Heard's Island is a perpendicular bluff of rocks and ice. Near the " heel " on the 

 southwest side of the island is Long Beach, which is generally covered with sea-elephants the 

 year round. A sealer's hut is built at each end of this beach, for men to live in that are sent over 

 from the other side of the island to drive off the elephants^nfhopes that they may haul up on more 

 accessible beaches, where they may be killed and the blubber secured. It is impossible to land 

 here with boats, and vessels cannot get near on account of reefs and heavy breakers, that extend 

 5 or 6 miles seaward. Captain Chester, who was sealing on the island in 1860, estimated that 

 the number of elephants on Long Beach any day throughout the year would make from 10,000 to 

 15,000 barrels of oil. The men have to travel over rough icebergs to reach this beach, and it is 

 quite a dangerous task on account of the many chasms in the bergs that must be leaped over. 



Next to Long Beach is a small stretch of sandy shore, where the elephants are crowded in large 

 numbers, but the place is inaccessible to man, because of the fearful icebergs intervening. At 

 Southwest Beach, on this side of the island, opposite Whisky Bay, sea-elephants are killed, and 

 after being stripped, the blubber is with great difficulty carried over the icebergs to the huts, where 

 it is tried out or carried aboard the vessels. 



On several parts of the island, but chiefly on the northerly side, are small houses or huts in 

 which the men live during the elephant season or when wintering here. At the time of Capt. H. C. 

 Chester's visit there in 1860 there were no huts in Corinthian Bay, but at the head of Whisky Bay 

 there were two, one of them the " Roman's " house and the other the " Colgate's," called so from the 

 names of the vessels whose crews built them. At Saddle Point ttiere was a house, and a little farther 

 south another one, built by the Roman's crew. At Fairchild's Beach there was a house, and 

 beyond that, just eastward of a great flat iceberg, were more houses. On Southwest Beach Point, 

 at the " toe " of the island, there were three houses, and two previously mentioned at Long Beach. 



The English exploring ship Challenger visited Heard's Island in 1874, and from Mr. Moseley's 

 account of that visit we quote the following interesting description of that dreary place: 



" Whisky Bay is near the northernmost extremity of the island. To the southeast of the ship, 

 as she lay in the small bay, were seen a succession of glaciers descending right down to the beach, 

 and separated by lateral moraines from one another ; six of these glaciers were visible from the 

 anchorage, forming by their terminations the coast-line eastward. They rose with a gentle slope, 

 with the usual rounded, undulating surface, upward towards the interior of the island, but their 

 origin was hid in the mist and cloud, and Big Ben, the great mountain of the island, said to be 

 7,000 feet in height, was not seen by us at all. 



" One of the glaciers, that nearest the ship, instead of abutting on the sea-shore directly with 

 its end as did the others, presented towards its lower extremity its side to the action of the waves, 

 and ending somewhat inland, formed a well-marked but scanty moraine. 



" To the sea-shore this glacier presented a vertical wall of ice, resting directly upon the black 

 volcanic sand composing the beach. In this wall was exposed a very instructive longitudinal sec- 

 tion of the glacier mass, in which the series of curved bands produced by differential motion were 

 most plainly marked, and visible from the distance of the anchorage. The ice composing the wall 

 or cliff was evidently being constantly bulged outwards by internal pressure, and masses were thue 



